Black Screen of Death - Tried Everything, what now?

Hello,

Last Saturday, my wife turns on the computer and says that when she tried to log in, it would just display a plain black screen.

As I investigated, sure enough, when I log in, I only get a black screen. I can move the mouse freely, but nothing is visible. I have tried the following:

• The Prevx fixshell.exe program

• Ran malware bytes antimalware in safe mode

• CTRL+ALT+Delete & Ran new task: "explorer.exe" and I also tried "C:\Windows\explorer.exe"

• I also tried copying a new 'explorer.exe' file from a fresh install of my exact OS from my laptop.

• I verified my registry at HKEY_Local_Machine\Software\Microsot\Windows NT\Current Version\Winlogon to make sure 'shell = explorer.exe', but still nothing.

Nothing seems to be working. I can boot into Safe Mode just fine and see everything. But I can't boot into my computer/user normal anymore. I really can't do an OS reinstall right now. Please help!

Do the following steps in safe mode.

1. Click Start Menu
2. Right click My Computer/Computer
3. Click Manage
4. Click Device Manager from the list on the left
5. Expand Display adapters
6. Right click each display adapter in that list and click Uninstall (do not hit OK when the dialog pops up after clicking Uninstall)
7. Put a tick to delete driver software for the device and click OK
8. Restart Windows in normal mode

If you continue to have the same problem or other problems, let us know.

Thank you for your help. I had previously disabled my video card driver and tested my system doing that, and it still didn't work. Any other thoughts or ideas? Thanks again!

jerdoggmckoy said:

Thank you for your help. I had previously disabled my video card driver and tested my system doing that, and it still didn't work. Any other thoughts or ideas? Thanks again!

It could be an application conflict. Run through the steps to Troubleshoot Application Conflicts by Performing a Clean Startup

Thanks! I'll give it a shot and post back here with the results.

Best wishes! :)

Dude. . . I'm AWESOME. . .er, I mean, you're awesome too! I was able to get into my desktop without it being in safe mode again! Thank you so much! Now I have to troubleshoot and figure out what was causing the error. I'll continue following the instructions. Thanks again!

Ok, now, for the sake of knowledge at this point, I followed those guidelines exactly. What I ended up find out was that it was my anti-virus WebRoots service that was/is causing the problems.

I can start WebRoot once I am logged into my desktop, and my anti-virus runs just fine. However, I can't set it to automatically start when windows starts, without running into that conflict. Obviously, this could be a problem. Anyone have any suggestions? Or am I to seek out a different anti-virus program?

jerdoggmckoy said:

Ok, now, for the sake of knowledge at this point, I followed those guidelines exactly. What I ended up find out was that it was my anti-virus WebRoots service that was/is causing the problems.

I can start WebRoot once I am logged into my desktop, and my anti-virus runs just fine. However, I can't set it to automatically start when windows starts, without running into that conflict. Obviously, this could be a problem. Anyone have any suggestions? Or am I to seek out a different anti-virus program?

Uninstall WebRoot with the steps in How do I uninstall and reinstall my program?. Replace it with Microsoft Security Essentials - Free Antivirus for Windows to run with Windows firewall.

Really? I was unaware of that software. Thanks for the advice!